sexy rolled up sweaters from bare rose

See, this is what I love about Bare Rose. In addition to being damn cheap, you can get all sorts of different looks out of what June Dion has to offer. Yesterday’s foray into scary sexy was fun, hehe, but I was in the mood for a more mainstream look this morning.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring! 

Bare Rose has these great little rolled up sweaters with sculpted attachments. As usual, everything’s modifiable and no copy, so you can edit to fit but exercise care while doing so. There’s four sculpt attachments altogether: two for the parts that are rolled up around your arms, one for the turtleneck, and one more for the part that is rolled up around the chest, just above the breasts. Editing was super easy; the only adjustments I had to make was to reposition the neck prim slightly and to lower the collar slider on the jacket layer.

For less than L$200, you get the sweater in a whopping six colors: black, blue, green, red, purple, and pink. Since they’re transferable, you can share with your alts! :p I’ve only shown black, blue, red, and green in my pics. It should be noted, these don’t come with shirt for placing under the sweater… you need to find something in your inventory to go under. Or you can give everyone a peep show :p

Credits:
Skin – Laqroki Claudia
Hair – Truth Grazia
Eyes – Exodi Zbilja
Body Shape & Earrings – Mela’s Curvy Yadira & candy corn earrings
Tank Top – Celestial Studios
Jeans – Armidi Grace

Juicy & irkmade

Hap Underwood of Irkmade just released this fun sculpted moon. Embedded in it are several fun animations; I took a few quick snapshots but I just know there are tons of great photography opportunities to be had with this new toy

Elven Dreamscape of Juicy Shoes provided such an opportunity with the release of the new scrumptious slingbacks. These sexy new shoes come in the same broad range of mouth-watering colors as their Classic Pumps, and the sitting pose on the moon came in perfect for showing them off.

Elven’s worked sculpt magic again on these babies; the primwork is immaculate. Anyone who knows me is aware that I am picky about my shoes, mainly because I really, really, really hate when I put a shoe on and see slivers of foot gone “missing” due to some invisiprim parts sticking out and covering it. That drives me crazy. Elven’s deft touch with sculpts and prims mean you never deal with this type of glitch, and I can only think of a handful of other shoe designers that seem able to pull this off consistently.

Technical aspects aside, the aesthetics also please greatly — once again Juicy shoes hit that sweet spot with the toes, falling nicely between too pointy and too round. The buckles and the heelcaps also sport texture-changing so that you can change the metals from gold to silver, or you can make them black. As for the shoe’s color textures? They are gorgeous! They’ve got the right amount of highlighting/shine on them, and the array of colors means your wardrobe’s covered. In fact, there’s so many colors I didn’t bother taking pics of all of them… I got lazy. So I “stole” this pic off Gogo’s flickr, hehe :p

Other details about what I’m wearing in the images above may be found after the cut:

Kouse’s Sanctum

I’m naughty — I had these in my inventory for a bit and only got to blogging them today! It’s just that I’ve been busy/consumed/obsessed with different projects. This post will be picture-intense, so to balance things out I will attempt to refrain from indulging in my usual verbosity. Emphasis on the word “attempt”. :p

Okay… today’s post is all about a lovely shop named Kouse’s Sanctum. I first learned about the white-haired Kouse Singh on flickr, where she posts beautiful images from the fantasy side of SL. Think Avilion, elves, and dragons. ^_^ Well, I guess I’ve been residing under a sculpted rock or something because it was quite a pleasant squee-worthy surprise to discover that Kouse has been crafting beautiful gowns.

First gown up: the magnificent Celestial Empress gown in Azure. You know, my favorite color is actually red, but show me a dress like this and I could easily forget that fact, hehe. An Evanescence song came on the radio just as I put this on, so I might’ve channeled a very slight bit of Amy Lee when accessorizing. ^^

Here is the Emerald version:

You know what’s great about gowns like Kouse’s? Pair them up with a romantic hairstyle like this one and you get a perfect showcase for your lovely shoulders, and imho there’s blessed little out there that can capture that right balance of fantasy, romance and sexiness without venturing into tramp territory. Gratuitous shoulder shot next :p

Kouse is generous. This next version of the Celestial Empress is called the Midnight Kiss, and it’s a group freebie and even comes with a tiara and necklace.

The corset lacing along the back is positively delicious. I’m a big fan of stuff that shows off the curvature of the spine; the more, the better, I say!

Another series of gowns to take a look at is the Lady Serenity. This next photo shows the Cirrus version of Lady Serenity (worn with white hair in honor of Kouse ^^):

There is a subtle difference between the two dresses in that shot above — the skirt on the right is actually somewhat transparent. All of Kouse’s gowns come with different flexi-skirt options. Some are slightly transparent, others are built larger so that you can use the outfit as a ballgown.

Lady Serenity comes in other colors, too. Here it is in Red Rose:

Again, the two skirt options:

Last but not least, the Lady LeShelle dress in Forest:

Lady LeShelle comes with two prim belts in silver and gold. I meant to show the Lady LeShelle gown in black, too, but I couldn’t find some of the prim pieces in that great ever-expanding maw that I call my inventory.

Pay a visit to Kouse’s Sanctum to pick these goodies up and to see even more of her selection: Garindan 10, 146, 263

Other credits and SLURLs after the cut. Missing SLURLs will be provided later when I log back in and can grab them; until then, the Search tool is your friend.

Candy House and other new hair goodies

Wow, lots of great hairstyle goodies came out over the past few days, plus I came across a really cute hair store called Candy House. Here’s a bunch of my favorites…

I love the hair at ETD because the styles there almost always fit my avi right away. If I ever need to edit ETD hair, it’s usually just some minor change like moving a prim ever so slightly so that it doesn’t cover up an ear. Upon visiting the newly remodeled store, I was immediately drawn to the romantic-looking Marisela hairstyle which you see pictured here.

Using my Armidi giftcard, I was also finally able to treat myself to the Roxy style that I’ve been wanting for a while now. ^^

Another hairstyle that I adored is the Berri2 by Truth. I didn’t buy it for my main avi because it didn’t quite look right on my shape, but my altie sure looks adorable in it. There were actually a bunch of new styles that just came out at Truth and the demos are free, so it’s definitely worth your while to take a look there.

While running around some random Japanese sims, I came across the adorably named Candy House, which is owned by the equally adorably named Marina Puff. Candy House has more of a cozy boutique feel to it, with roughly a dozen hairstyles. What’s great about Candy House is that you get all the available colors in just one package for just 120L, and as if that weren’t plenty of value for your money, some of the packages contain the hairstyle with different types of bangs… again in each color.  Awesome stuff, really!

All right, instead of writing a whole lot more about the hairstyles I grabbed at Candy House, I shall simply let the pictures do the talking.

FYI — this Mocomoco style has texture change hair accessories on it. You simply click on each part to cycle through the textures. This hair is modifiable and so I plan on eventually loading some of my own patterned textures in it.

And oh my goodness… I am in love with this hair from BettiePage Voyager’s shop in Osaka. After seeing it on Natasha, I HAD to have this hair, even if it meant camping at the BP* lucky chair for it. (It’s not for sale and is offered only as a freebie from the chair.)

************

Okay, and now for a completely abrupt change in subject, (because quite frankly I am too tired at the moment to come up with some clever segue)… I have two cute chairs up for sale at my shop in Juicy (the sim formerly known as La Reina).

If you’d like to give them as presents, you can do so by sending from either my OnRez storefront or my SLExchange listings.

My ShopArmidi.com adventure

I went on a shopping binge last night at Armidi.

Okay, it wasn’t exactly “at” Armidi; I visited the sim to activate my giftcard but it was all Firefox browsing from there.

The Armidi blog recently announced that people could use their giftcards on MyGiftCard.ShopArmidi.com, a development I was very happy to hear about because I’ve been dying to use my giftcard for a while now. Okay, maybe not dying… but it felt urgent! :p The giftcard site is actually a foreshadowing of the official Armidi.com shopping site that they’re saying will come out in Spring 2008.

My initial experience with activating the gift card was a bit bumpy — visiting the website resulted in my receiving a message saying that my password had been lost (didn’t know I had one in the first place) and that I needed to visit the gift card kiosk in the Armidi sim to get assigned a new one. Okay, no problem. When I arrived there, however, the kiosk’s response was something along the line of, “You already have a password, please visit the website to retrieve it.” Like a person repeatedly hitting the crossing button at the sidewalk corner, I began to click the kiosk a bunch of times in annoyance and w00t! I eventually got my password.

ShopArmidi.com looks to be everything a shopping website ought to be — aesthetically pleasing, an intuitive layout, and it loads fast. You navigate from the landing page to the different departments (Beauty, Gisaci, Intimizzio, etc.), and each department has a series of pages that you can click through using the numbers listed at the bottom, as well as the Previous and Next page links.

Fatpack lovers will be happy to learn that they can now buy that dress or pair of jeans they’re so keen on in every color, and at a discount — a feature that is currently not available in the Armidi sim. These are not small discounts, either. Take a look at their cute Moccas boots, for example: the boots are 295L each and come in fifteen colors, so if you were to buy each one separately that’d run you 4425L. The “All Colours” option will let you grab all of them in one fell swoop for 2950L, which is a savings of 1475L. That’s like getting five of the boots for free. If you’re crazy enough about the shoes and don’t mind putting your inventory through that kind of abuse, then you should be happy with that feature. ^^

Another thing I loved about using the website was the delivery service. From the moment you hit Confirm, the speed with which your item is delivered in-world is impressive. The site’s FAQ says to expect delivery within ten seconds, although it may take as much as thirty to sixty seconds if there’s lag, etc. Honestly, I probably got all my stuff in five seconds or less; when I’d switch from Firefox to my SL client, the little blue delivery message in the upper right corner would already be waiting for me. Okay, this next point will probably seem like fluff to most people but I do love little touches like this… my items were delivered to me in a black sculpty shopping bag that gave me my purchases in a folder as soon as I rezzed them, and when I attached the shopping bags to my avatar’s hand, I saw a subtle hand-swinging animation. How cute is that?!

There are a couple of things I didn’t see on the site, however, that I do hope will surface in the official shopping website when it debuts later this year. For starters, navigating between the departments involves the extra step of heading back to the landing page. While this is not a major issue, it is mildly annoying and I would have preferred to see some kind of feature that let me skip straight from, say, Intimizzio to Elephant Outfitters instead of constantly going back to the main page. Another thing I wouldn’t mind seeing tweaked is the font color of the text for the page numbers and the names of the items. The font itself is already kind of on the small-ish side; the lightness of the font color makes it that much less legible. One more thing I want to see — and I’m sure they will offer this come later this year, I’d be shocked if it weren’t — is the ability to purchase things from them and have it delivered to another avatar as a gift.

Oh, there was one more thing that occurred, and the lightning-speed with which Armidi’s staff resolved it has cemented my position as a fan of theirs. I’d used up almost all of my giftcard’s funds and had 265L left — not quite enough to purchase the 295L Roxy hair that I wanted. There’s no way to refill your card or to pay the difference out of your own linden balance, you’re simply given an insufficient funds message. I sent an e-mail to Armidi’s support address, and I don’t quite remember how long it took but it felt like maybe only five minutes had passed before I was getting IM’d by London Armidi? Anyhow, that kind of speed impresses me a lot, especially when it’s coming from a merchant as big (and therefore quite busy) as these guys.

One more thing to note — according to the giftcard site, Armidi group members will get a chance to view the site shortly before the rest of the public will be able to use it come this Spring.

Fancy Fairy by Violaine Villota

Fancy Fairy by Violaine Villota

Heads up! This post will have oodles of pics plus a very short video.

All right, so I am still on my fantasy fashion kick, where I’m wanting to dress my avatar in ways that I wouldn’t dress in RL. My last couple of posts in this series were about these crazy cute rabbit costumes from Love Soul as well as beautiful medieval-inspired gowns from Evie’s Closet. ^_^

This time, I’ve meandered into the realm of mystical fairies. The lovely Violaine Villota’s shop, Fancy Fairy, (which btw exists in RL, too!  www.fancyfairy.com) comes stocked with a great selection of fairy wings and costumes, and the range of prices you’ll find there will fit anyone’s budget.

First item we have here is the Dew Petal Steel Blue outfit. I was immediately drawn to the beautiful color and texturing of this dress, which almost makes it look as if you are wrapped in layers of diaphanous gauze. Along the chest area are dewdrops (hence the name of the outfit), and the edges of the skirt prims have this gorgeous, gossamer-frail-torn look to them, thanks to some mad-skillz alpha work. And look at those wings! They’re somewhat sheer and move nicely with you since they’re made of flexi-prims.

Like the dress but don’t want to flounce about as a fairy? The dress works great on it’s own — pair it up with some strappy heels and you’re ready to go dancing instead of fluttering. Violaine has thoughtfully included two skirt lengths, the top on multiple layers, and two glitch pants, of which at least one was modifiable (I forgot to check if the other one was modifiable, too, but it wasn’t really necessary since it was already the perfect length to go with the shorter skirt.)

Next up is the autumnal Red Leaf Fairy outfit. The layers on this outfit are simple enough — an asymmetrical system skirt (wear your dress shape unless you want to be a large-bottomed fairy ), a system shirt with a “strap” (dunno what else to call it, lol) going over one shoulder; but my goodness the artistry displayed by the textures is impressive! They’re a delicate blend of browns, siennas, burnt reds, golds, purples, dark blues… really marvelous looking stuff. Again, the alpha work along the edges of the top and the skirt are fab.

As beautiful as those textures are on the clothing pieces, however, the true crowning glory of the Red Leaf outfit are the set of wings that come with it. I know I’m totally going to sound like a broken record by the end of this post… but look at the texture! The gold highlights on the wings themselves, the highlighting along the darker spines, the mottled edges and the alpha where they’re “torn”… gotta love it. Yes, these are flexi-wings, but what makes them special is that they are scripted to flutter via (silent) voice command. I took a short video to show them fluttering:

And you know what? Fairies need lingerie, too. (‘Kay, I just made that up. :p ) This is the Champagne and Roses Fae Lingerie set, just in time for all you romantics who want to celebrate Valentine’s Day. These pretties come with a two-piece bra and panty set, sheer pink stockings, and two corsets that have a lace-up detail along the back.

I personally was super-impressed with the panties, because for crying out loud I dunno how many times I’ve had undies that did not cover up the crotch area as much as I’d like. What’s more, I saw nary a hint of the dreaded texture bleed along the inner thighs that is often associated with panties/bikini bottoms. Amazing.

And talk about comprehensive… every piece is on every layer possible, so you can mix and match these with other items to your heart’s content.

And yes, this would not be fairy lingerie if it did not have the requisite fairy wings These are flexi-prim wings and not scripted.

Fancy Fairy has an ample selection of wings to choose from, and yes, all of them are bloody gorgeous. Pictured above are the Kira Grande White Pearl Goldflexi wings and the Kira Valentine Pink Flexi Wings.

The wings come in two types: “plain” flexi-prim wings (“plain” is in quotation marks, because really, these are anything BUT bland) and scripted ones that will flutter, in a wide variety of colors to satisfy most, if not all, tastes. I believe all of the scripted wings will flutter solely by voice command, which IMHO is great because the last thing I want to do is give up more of my client’s real estate over to space-sucking HUDs.

And finally, we have the Sun Fairy outfit. Guess what! It’s only 1L. You have no excuse for not being a pretty princess fairy now. :p This outfit features flexi-prim wings, sculpted sleeve attachments, beautifully done skirt prims, an off-the-shoulder top with a rouching detail all along the flattering neckline, a gold, velvety-looking corset that’s laced up along the backside, and a some beautiful prim leaves and ribbons decorating the breast. There’s even a glove layer so that you have proper looking sleeve ends that go over your hands.

There’s lots more available at Fancy Fairy, and what’s nice is that the Dew Petal outfits, which come in all sorts of colors, can do double-duty as both fairy and evening wear. You can find the shop in the Fushida sim, or just look up Violaine Villota’s profile and check out her Picks tab where she’s got all her locations conveniently listed.

And one more thing to note — this shop is yet another great example of a RL business that takes advantage of SL in a way that shows some common sense.  If you like what Fancy Fairy offers in-world, then you might like what it has to offer in meatspace, as well.  Check out the website at fancyfairy.com ^^

What I’m Wearing…

… with the Dew Petal outfit:

Shoes – Paper Couture, strapped diamond heel
Hair – Cake, Faith silver / RaC, Princess black
Eyes – Nomine, Drakonian blue / Simtropia, brown deep
Lashes – RaC, black flirty
Skin – RaC, Akisha / RaC, Trisha
Poses – Poseur

… with the Red Leaf Fairy outfit:

Hair – RaC, Raven black
Eyes – Simtropia, brown deep
Lashes – RaC, black flirty
Skin – RaC, Trisha
Poses – Poseur, Reel Expression
Video pose – Poseur

… with the Champagne & Roses Fae Lingerie set:

Hair – Cake, Rumor black
Eyes – Simtropia, brown deep
Lashes – RaC, black flirty
Skin – RaC, Trisha
Manicure – RaC, No 04
Poses – Juicy, Reel Expression

… with the Kira flexi-prim wings:

Hair – Armidi, Ginza silver (and the lingerie set, obviously :p )

… with the Sun Fairy 1L outfit:

Hair – RaC, Raven
Eyes – Simtropia, brown deep
Lashes – RaC, black flirty
Skin – RaC, Trisha
Shoes – Shiny Things, Classic Ballet Flats antiqued
Poses – Poseur

Lingerie by Carnal

Guys, if you’re hunting for a sexy Valentine’s Day gift for your girl, then here’s a shop you might want to check out.

While wandering around random sims a few days ago, I came across an empty shop that had a couple of images on the wall, pictures of female avs wearing lingerie. Long story short: turns out I was looking at the site of a future satellite shop for lingerie seller Carnal. Since I liked what I saw, I decided to take a look at Carnal’s main store in Aqua Pache.

The poster vendors throughout the store sell lingerie with copy/mod/no transfer permissions, but one of the first things you’ll notice when you arrive at the store is a small display with gift bags on it. The gift bags contain transferable versions of their lingerie; perfect for gift-giving!

Here are some of the pretties that I picked up (click on the images to view larger versions on flickr; credits and SLURLs are at the end of this post):

Everything I bought came on the undershirt and underpants layers only, and each set had some kind of prim adornments to go with it. My favorite item out of all my purchases is the lilac camisole set (in the first pic). The flexi-prim ribbon that rests over the torso and the lacy cups are sweet, but it’s the panties that really appealed to me; they’re sheer but they don’t give everything away since there’s a panel of lace that lays across the front of the crotch.

Turns out Carnal is actually a RL online business that has expanded into SL. If you like what your avi’s wearing and are perhaps a little jealous of her SL wardrobe, then you can treat yourself to the RL version of the lingerie by visiting Carnal Online. Other RL businesses looking to use SL as a promotional tool would do well to observe how Carnal has gone about this (*cough*ARMANI*cough*). I think a lot of RL businesses make the mistake of viewing their presences in SL as merely an advertising/promotional tool, and overlook the fact that the majority of residents in SL are looking for innovative and useful builds/products that actually involve them while they’re in-world. It looks like the folks at Carnal see their SL store as an extension of their business and as a result of their insight, they’re able to get more out of SL than some of the big name corporations we’ve seen come and go.

If you’d like to check out more of their SL offerings, visit Carnal’s store in the Aqua Pache sim.

What I’m wearing:

1st image: Lingerie – Carnal, Lilac Camisole; Skin – RaC, Trisha smoky; Eyes – Simtropia, stone deep; Lashes – RaC, Black flirty; Hair – ETD, Phoebe ebony faded; Shoes – Maitreya, Grace Pearl

2nd image: Lingerie – Carnal, Moscou Full Cup; Skin – MM Skins, Pale SkinGloss Old HollyWood; Eyes – Sin Skins, Intense Ocean/Obsidian Eyes (blue); Hair – ETD, Flapper black; Shoes – Stiletto Moody, Pump black patent

3rd image: Lingerie – Carnal, Venise Guepiere; Skin – RaC, Trisha smoky; Eyes – Simtropia, brown deep; Lashes – RaC, Black flirty; Hair – ETD, Madeline II black; Shoes – Armidi, Dalia Pump black ; Manicure – RaC, Manicure 02

4th image: Lingerie – Carnal, Vienne Body; Skin – RaC, Trisha; Eyes – Simtropia, honey spot; Lashes – RaC, Black flirty; Hair – RaC Hair, Southfork black; Shoes – Maitreya, Slinky Stilettos Steel; Manicure – Skin Flicks, French Manicure

Fireflies

There’s a new kid on the block at La Reina, the sim where my store is located! Okay, not a literal “kid” but rather, a store called Fireflies. I’d never heard of it before, but I’ve since made myself quite familiar with it. :p

Aside from the fact that the dresses at Fireflies all come from the same designer, Novella Voom, there is a common denominator shared by all of the clothes offered there that strikes you immediately: they are all sexy. Provocatively sexy; elegantly sexy; sweetly sexy… I’m sure I could come up with several other adjectives ending with the “-ly” suffix but I think you get the point.

The textures are beautifully done, too. My favorite from Fireflies, the Scarlet, is a flirty red dress that seems to shimmer, and the clever highlighting and shading on the shirt layer makes it look as if the dress is reflecting light. Then there’s the sheer and lacy Isobel dress with it’s use of clean alpha, which you can take advantage of by wearing yet more lacy underthings; or if you want to be truly daring, just wear the dress by itself and let it show off that lovely skin of yours. ^_^

Here are several of the dresses that my friends Wilma Delgado and Gorgeous Yongho and I picked up while browsing the shop (clicking the images will take you to their respective flickr pages where you can view a larger size; credits and SLURLs are at the end of the post):

I should mention that everything in this store is very affordable. In fact, the last four dresses shown above are all just L$1 each; last time I checked, there were six of these “dollarbie” dresses available.

To see these dresses for yourself, visit Fireflies, located on the boardwalk at La Reina.

What we’re wearing:

1st image: Dress – Fireflies, Scarlet; Hair – Kin, Ash black; Lashes – RaC, Black flirty; Eyes – Simtropia, brown deep; Skin – RaC, Trisha smoky; Manicure – RaC, Manicure 04; Earrings – Paper Couture, Paillette earrings black and red; Bracelets – Amaretto, black bangles (freebie); Shoes – Shiny Things, Signature Slingbacks red / Jewelry worn with long version: Earrings – Caroline’s Jewelry, Eva Gold Hoop Earrings; Bracelets – Caroline’s Jewelry, Gold Flexi Bangles from the 3 Flexi Bracelets-Gentle Sway set

2nd – 4th images: Dresses – Fireflies, Isobel in black, red, and white; Hair – Kin, Ash black; Lashes – RaC, Black flirty; Eyes – Simtropia, brown deep; Skin – RaC, Trisha smoky; Manicure – RaC, Manicure 04 / worn in full-length shots of black version: Lingerie set – Insolence, Clara Black Satin; Shoes – Armidi Gisaci, Dalia Pump black

5th image: Dress – Fireflies, Vivienne; Hair – ETD, Marisela nickel burnt; Skin – RaC, Tasha smoky; Shoes – Shiny Things, Spring Stilettos black; Jewelry – Appetite & Eve Jewellery [Serendipity Studios], Victoriana Diamond Encrusted Pearl necklace, earrings, and ring

6th image: Dress – Fireflies, Eden; Hair – Kin, Amaunet white; Eyes – Nomine, Orbital 4; Skin – Sin Skins, Etheria Crinaeae (blue/aqua); Manicure – RaC, Manicure 11; Choker – Curious Kitties (accessories), Strap Choker; Neko ears – Hybrid, Sculpty Neko smooth fur; Neko tail – Hybrid, Basic Neko Tail; Piercings** – Zipz, eyebrow light metal spike micro twisted + nose titanium curved barbell + lip linked double light titanium captive steel rings; Tattoos – The Body Politik, Tribal Armband; Stockings – Curious Kitties, Fishnet & PVC Stockings; Boots – sf design, hi tuff black small boots; Bracelets – Cake, 80s pop bracelet
** Piercings were originally three separate sets; modified and linked by myself to accommodate lack of sufficient facial attachment points.

7th image: Dress – Fireflies, Krystal; Skin – Minnu Model Skins, Pale SkinGloss Rain; Hair – ETD, Katherine platinum; Shoes – Periquita Shoes, Black Toe Lolita; Necklace – GRANDMA!, wood-necklace (Y)

8th image:  Dress – Fireflies, LeiLei; Hair – Celestial Studios, Annie May II espresso; Lashes – RaC, Black flirty; Eyes – Simtropia, brown deep; Skin – RaC, Trisha smoky; Manicure – RaC, Manicure 02; Earrings – Paper Couture, Chinese Lantern Earring pearl; Shoes – Shiny Things, Ballet Flats classic pearl

9th image:  Dress – Fireflies, Romy; Hair – ETD, Naomi black; Eyes – Simtropia, gray light; Skin – Soda, fiona beta (group preview freebie); Manicure – RaC, Manicure 02; Body Shape – Mela’s, upcoming release; Leggings – Girlie, black leggings; Shoes – Shiny Things, Wood wedge platforms black/black; Bracelets – Caroline’s Jewelry, Black Rubber Bracelets

Baiastice Haute Couture

I’m a sucker for gorgeous and luxurious gowns. Like, really. Case in point: when Simone held her 100L sale a few months ago, guess who was repeatedly hitting Right-click > Buy in the wedding gown section, even though she has no plans on getting married in SL anytime soon (or ever, for that matter). Yeah, laugh all you want, I know there’s tons of you out there who’ve done the same…

Anyways, I recently discovered Baiastice Haute Couture, a store owned by Italian designer Sissy Pessoa, and guess what she sells! That’s right, gowns and dresses. Okay, she sells a lot of other stuff, too, but trust me — when you arrive there, it’s the gowns and dresses that are going to grab your attention.

Here are two items that grabbed not only my interest, but my linden wallet as well (clicking on the images will take you to their respective flickr pages where you can view larger versions; credits and SLURLs are at the end of this post):

The Histoire gown is a floor-length strapless number in an unusual taupe print. Horizontal bands of slightly lighter material repeat from top to bottom, except for one darker band that lies just below the breasts. Also drawing your eyes to the cleavage baring gap is a different colored texture that seems to peek out at you from under the neutral print of the gown.

I should mention that the skirt prims were designed for an avatar that’s considerably taller than my own. (Fyi, my avatar is 5′9″.) Since the prims are modifiable and copiable, shrinking the prims to fit was a painless procedure. In keeping with the neutral tone of the texture, I opted for a terracotta shade of lip color, copper-ish nail polish, and gold bangles and earrings. Since the cleavage area already has a number of things going on there, I decided to forgo wearing any neck adornments.

The Alabastro dress is the first dress that really took hold of my notice. This is a very flirty and very playful dress that shows off a lot of skin, from the almost completely bare shoulders and half-bared midriff to the exaggeratedly asymmetrical hemline and sheer front flexiprims that will show off your gams like nobody’s business. What keeps it from going over the top is the shimmery, almost monochromatic texture.

Because of the somewhat ostentatious feel of this dress, I felt it was only right that the rest of the outfit should keep up. I chose to accessorize the dress with diamond encrusted t-strap heels, diamond jewelry, and silver hair. Offsetting the glitzy look are a softer pink lipcolor and nail polish.

Those weren’t the only things that caught my eye, of course, but I didn’t want to go completely crazy in the store. :-p Two other outfits that I almost bought were the Greenwater gown and the Quiet Voice dress, which comes with a hat. I took the liberty of snapping a photo of the Greenwater poster:

You can find these and other gowns and dresses at Baiastice Haute Couture in the Centro Italia sim.

P.s. When I went there today, the Christmas freebie gifts — a white gown and some lingerie — were still being offered. To find them, look in the hallway just past the second room on the ground floor. Since these freebies have a Christmas theme, I’m not sure how much longer they will remain there.

What I’m wearing:

1st image: Dress – Baiastice Haute Couture, Histoire; Hair – RaC, Southfork black; Eyes – Simtropia, brown deep; Lashes – RaC, Black flirty lashes; Skin – RaC, Trisha; Manicure – RaC, Manicure 06; Earrings – Caroline’s Jewelry, Eva Gold Hoop Earrings; Bracelets – Caroline’s Jewelry, Gold Flexi Bangles; Shoes – Maitreya, Grace brown

2nd image: Dress – Baiastice Haute Couture, Alabstro; Hair – Armidi, Ginza silver; Eyes – Simtropia, brown deep; Skin – RaC, Sofia; Body Shape – Mela’s, pink lady; Manicure – RaC, Manicure 01; Jewelry set – Muse, Limited Edition Dauphine set in silver/jet (group gift); Shoes – Paper Couture, strapped diamond heel granite

J’s shitkicker boots

Okay, so these aren’t really called shitkicker boots by the designer; it just sounds cool to me and it’s a phrase that I know my friend Vivi would use. :p

Here are some zoomed-in shots of the boots. (Btw, I’m using the angel3 and angel10 poses from the Juicy Angel pose set that Gogo recently released, as well as the naughty2 pose from the Juicy Naughty set. They were perfect for showcasing these boots up close and personal, and at 1L for each set you really have no excuse for not having them in your inventory!)

Clicking on the following images will take you to their respective flickr pages where you can view larger sizes; credits and SLURLs are at the end of this post.

Before I say anything else about the shoes at J’s, there are two caveats that you should be aware of first: (1) there are no demos available, and (2) these shoes run a bit small, even in their “larger” sizes.

These sculpty shoes are the Work Boots from J’s, located in the Tsukishima sim. Creator JB Gazov has done a great job with the sculpty shape of these boots and has taken care with the textures on these, from the upper parts to the brown leather on the flexi laces and the realistic brass of the grommets through which the laces weave. The two different colors of the rear pull-on loops are an interesting feature — the left shoe’s loop is red while the right shoe’s loop is brown. Finishing it off are thick, detailed outsoles that look like they’re ready to provide your avi with some serious traction.

I chose the flashier red color, of course, since red is my favorite color. If that’s not your thing, however, then perhaps you’ll be interested in the more traditional black and brown versions.

The poster in the store says these boots are unisex but from what I saw, there’s no way these boots would fit most of the male avatars that I personally know; as I stated above the shoes at J’s run pretty small. (Machete bought the western boots, and despite the fact that different sized prims are included in the folder, he had to bring down his leg muscle and body thickness sliders in order to be able to fit into the largest versions.)

When I saw the red boots, I immediately thought of my Priestly Vestments coat from Amerie’s Naughty that’s been sitting in my inventory for several months. I love the coat but I’ve never really pulled it out of my digital closet and worn it for a reasonable amount of time… until now. ^_^ It’s a lot of red, for sure, but I felt the boots worked with the almost cartoonish attitude and drama of the coat. Since I want to keep the focus of this post on shoes, I won’t go into detail about the coat, but you can still read the excellent write-up Morrigan Repine did earlier this month at Style Hotline.

Although these boots have a chunky and somewhat masculine look to them, you can definitely work a feminine angle with these by choosing the right items. In the example above, I chose to offset the bulkier shape of the boots by emphasizing a sleek leg line, visually elongating it with black tights and a body-hugging mini-skirt. Topping it off is a cute and decidedly feminine half coat.

J’s features more than just work boots, of course. There are several other sculpty boots that are worth mentioning; while I would have loved to have bought all of them I exercised self-restraint and chose to buy the backribbon boots.

Ladies, before I go any further, I feel I must warn you again right now: these boots were definitely made with a slender girl in mind. I think it has to do with the fact that most Japanese female avatars (at least the ones I’ve seen around) are all on the tinier side. After experimenting with a variety of body shapes, I’ve concluded that if you’ve got a body thickness upwards of 20 or if you’ve got the leg muscle slider set beyond 55, your avi WILL break through the largest non-modifiable sculpty prims.

I really like the height of the heels and the slim look of these boots, which is aided by the solid black coloring. A couple of elements accentuate the color block: zipper details that are part of the texture (not prims) run all the way down the insides of each boot, and on the back of the legs are brass grommets and black leather laces tied in a bow.

As soon as I saw the boots on my avi, I decided I wanted an outfit that would emphasize the leg shape even further. I chose a longish all-black sweater and a black mini-skirt. These two items, like the boots, are completely black in coloring but what really makes them visually interesting are the great cowl neck shape and the wrinkly-looking texture of the skirt. Finishing it off and providing a little bit of contrast is a colorful reddish hairstyle. ^_^

Overall, I’m happy with my purchases, especially the red Work Boots. I’m impressed with the quality of JB’s sculpties and will definitely be keeping an eye out for his future products. While I’m thankful that my new boots fit my avi without too much hassle, however, my only complaint is that I wish there were demos and and that there was more consideration for larger sized avatars. If your avi has a build similar to mines, then you should have no problem fitting these as well, but if your avi is somewhat larger then unfortunately I’d have to advise against spending on these, especially since they are not transferrable.

What I’m wearing:

1st & 2nd images: Boots – J’s, Work Boots red; Hair – Kin, Ash white; Skin – RaC, Trisha smoky; Eyes – Nomine, Orbital 4
Prim Lashes – RaC, black flirty; Manicure – RaC, Manicure No 04; Coat – Amerie’s Naughty, Priestly Vestments; Pants – PixelDolls, Black Pants freebie

3rd image: Boots – J’s, Work Boots red; Hair – ETD, Amber black; Skin – RaC, Trisha smoky; Eyes – Simtropia, brown deep; Glasses – NeaBan, Retro S; Manicure – RaC, Manicure No 04; Coat – Kurotsubaki, Red half coat; Skirt – Last Call, torn mini jean skirt from the Yelena set; Tights – Blaze, charcoal tights from the 13-color bundle

4th & 5th images: Boots – J’s, Backribbon boots black; Hair – Kin, luv burgundy; Skin – Tuli, S4F cream brown brows ~ rosy lips/smokey blue (holiday group gift); Manicure – RaC, Manicure No. 04; Body Shape – Mela’s, upcoming release; Eyes – IC, older freebie gift; Sweater – Armidi, Au Fraize Boucle Sweater black; Skirt – <3 Cupcakes, from the Black Gathered dress set;Hosiery – Paper Couture, from the free gift box in Barcola